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Because I are bad at the postings lately...
16
Jun
Jun
New Demo: An Easier Way to Line a Domed Hat
File Under: Sewing InstructionsSkill Level: Beginner
I was working on a couple of festive purple deerstalkers for a children’s show (as you do, of course, when your boss says, “Wouldn’t purple deerstalkers be cute for these girls?”), and I noticed that the pattern I had started from (not for a deerstalker) genuinely thought I was going to make a 6 piece lining. Now, that would be an awesome way to line a hat, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t feel like fussing. There’s an easy way to line any sort of domed hat that doesn’t sit absolutely tight to the skull… Interested? Read the rest of this entry »
8
Jun
Jun
New Demo: How to Handwork a Button Loop or Bar Tack
File Under: Sewing InstructionsSkill Level: Intermediate
Handworked button loops (for buttons) or bar tacks (to replace the “eye” part of a skirt hook, secure layers of a skirt together, or just generally be useful) are a lovely, couture detail. They are also awesomely easy, nice and oldey-timey looking, and surprisingly quick to work. Here’s the deal: Read the rest of this entry »
7
Jun
Jun
Ever Wondered How to Put Straight Trim on a Forepart?
Posted in Blog | 2 Comments »Take a look at the seam in this skirt from an Indian wedding that my boss turned up… Read the rest of this entry »
7
Jun
Jun
A Pretty Little Learning Experience….
Posted in Blog, Costumes, Experiments | 2 Comments »After the fluffy-white-tutu-athon of Les Sylphides, I decided that the best way to recover from all those tutus was … to make another tutu. The logic here might be a little sticky if you are not insane obsessive crazy a costumer, but after all those long fluffy white things, I wanted to try my hand at a proper platter tutu. And, happily, a fellow costumer from one of my theaters was willing to offer up her daughter as the victim of my first attempts… Read the rest of this entry »
19
May
May
Quick Tip for Binding Tabs…
Posted in Machine Sewing, Tips and Cheats | 3 Comments »…without anyone looking at the finished tab and asking if you were drunk and wearing mittens when you sewed it. I mean, everybody “knows” that if you want to bind rounded tabs you just have to use bias tape. Like, duh. But be honest with me – how well does that action really work when you try it? Between you, me, and the interwebs, when I try to machine bias onto a rounded tab in one swell foop, it usually looks poo. But a miracle happened last week, and my brain kicked in. There’s a little bitty-bit of magic from millinery that makes the difference between the top corset (the drunken-mittens approach) and the bottom corset (so much nicer…). And it’s fast, people. It’s faster than fighting the normal Battle of the Bias… Read the rest of this entry »
19
May
May
New Demo: Controlling Tulle
File Under: Sewing InstructionsSkill Level: Intermediate
So here’s the trouble with tutus… They are made of many, many layers of tulle*. And tulle, these days, is made of hate. I don’t want to sound all judgey-pants, but it’s true. Your average fabric store tulle is made of nylon, a fiber which suffers from a constant string of cheap, tragic affairs with single electrons. By the time you have 6 layers of nylon tulle mounted on the basque (that’s the shaped waist-band bit), you’ve actually sewn yourself a fluffy little Van de Graaff generator. A tutu-in-progress is amazing – you can actually watch threads fly from the floor towards the tutu where they permanently bond with with tulle. Effective for cleaning, perhaps, but not so good for the tutu which should ideally not look like some sort of worm-farm. Just in case you, dear reader, ever find yourself herding tulle through a sewing machine, here are a few tricks I’ve picked up from a couple years of sewing dance concerts at the shop… Read the rest of this entry »
7
Apr
Apr
New Demo: How to Grade a Pattern
File Under: Pattern DraftNo, not grade like what I do when my students turn in patterns! Grading a pattern is the process of sizing it up (or down). It sounds fairly intimidating, especially if you’ve ever seen any of the mysterious old-school tools for “assisting” in the process. (They’re a strange array of bars and levers, and I have absolutely no mortal clue what they’re meant to do or how they’re meant to do it.) Fortunately, there’s a quick and dirty way to grade a pattern… Read the rest of this entry »
23
Mar
Mar
New Demo: Adding a Side Seam Gusset
File Under: Sewing InstructionsSkill Level: Intermediate
Sometimes, bad things happen to good costumers. Like, your sister is throwing an 80′s party the next evening and you bomb out finding anything that can be mangled into some reasonable approximation of Cyndi Lauper so-unusual-excellence, and every bit of vintage you can find is a size 4. Now, that’s maybe not to traumatic if you actually are a size 4. I wouldn’t know, because as it turns out, my left thigh is a size 4. But I found the jacket of my dreams, and it was merely 4 or 5 sizes to small. What’s a girl to do? Gussets. Gussets will save you here. Read the rest of this entry »
10
Feb
Feb
Braggin’ about my students…
Posted in Teaching | 5 Comments »I had some excellent teachers when I was younger. The ones that were the most brilliant exemplified the sort of razor-thin line between creativity in the classroom and outright psychotic sadism. (My favorite was a bio teacher who came in to a dissection lab dressed as your classic maître d’, white gloves, linen towel on the arm and everything, carrying a silver tray, neatly lined with lettuce, and the objects of our academic investigations – cow eyeballs, each one with a toothpick neatly inserted into its optic nerve. It was brilliant object lesson in our cultural views on food. Half the class looked like they were going to vom.) I don’t teach biology, so I don’t get to play the gross-out card. Sadness is. But I do teach design, which has some other possibilities… ;) Read the rest of this entry »
9
Feb
Feb
New Demo: How to Cover a Button
File Under: Arts & CraftsSkill Level: Beginner
I love covered buttons. They just make a design look so pulled-together. The problem is that that directions on the back of the covered button kits are a little bit less than useful. They’re actually kinda bad. So for anyone who has ever wondered, here’s the sitch…. Read the rest of this entry »
